JDCMB is Jessica Duchen's Classical Music Blog. Music & writing, with CHOCOLATE AND SILVER, in London, UK. Author & journalist JD writes for The Independent.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

JDCMB Exclusive: 15% off Medici TV subscriptions

JDCMB has teamed up with the online performing arts channel Medici TV to bring you an exclusive special offer: a significant reduction on the cost of access to their Aladdin's Cave of live-streamed or on-demand video.

Medici's catalogue stretches to about 1000 titles, featuring world-class opera, concerts, dance and arts documentaries, adding a couple of new VODs plus two or three live concerts every week. In summer the channel usually live-streams most of the concerts from the Verbier Festival.

Now readers of JDCMB can save 15% on a subscription to Medici TV. Here's the range of options (prices in Euros - Medici is based in Paris):

- One-month Classic subscription at €5.9 instead of €6.9 for your first
month

-One-month Classic+ subscription at €9 instead of €10.85 for your first month

-One-year Classic subscription at €59 instead of €69

-One-year Classic+ subscription at €90 instead of €109

All you need to do to claim your discount is go to the Medici subscriptions page, choose your option and enter the word JESSICAMUSIC in the promotional code box.

As a taster, here is an extract from Medici's latest addition: from the Royal Ballet here in London, it is Kenneth MacMillan's Manon (known in Europe as L'histoire de Manon) starring no less a team than Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta. It was filmed at the Royal Opera House in 2008.

The tale, based on a terse 18th-century thriller by the Abbé Prévost, depicts the fall of the heroine from innocent convent girl to tragically abused deportee - her fatal flaw is allowing herself to be seduced away from true love by the lure of wealth. By the time she learns that love is the only way, it is too late... The book may be centuries old and the ballet decades, yet the story and their characters can seem all too contemporary right now.

Manon is much enriched by MacMillan's knack for conveying through choreography emotional nuances that you might never expect dance to be able to reflect. And its high points are its several magnificent pas de deux for Manon and Des Grieux, modelled in the original cast of 1974 on the legendary duo of Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell. The score is a carefully wrought kaleidoscope drawn from extracts of Massenet by Leighton Lucas.

Antoinette Sibley saw her as a girl ‘who allowed it all to
happen to her . . .I don’t think she’s a schemer - she only makes
decisions when she has to’. Lynn Seymour made her more ruthless: she and
her brother are ‘cut from the same cloth, both bandits, using all they
have to achieve what they want . . . she broke the rules and the
punishment crushed her’. Natalia Makarova understood her as an
instinctive creature who lives for the moment, ‘extracting from it all
the excitement she can. At the same time she fully knows that the day
will come when she must pay the price…. for the pleasure of living
fully’. Sylvie Guillem’s guileful Manon used her sexual allure
to survive in a male-dominated world. Des Grieux’s misfortune was to
have strayed into her path just as she was discovering her power. Where
other Manons die as desperate victims, limp as rags, Guillem fought on, defying death itself.

You can see the whole thing on Medici, of course, which released the video last week, on 12 May - Jules Massenet's birthday. This year marks both the 170th anniversary of the composer's birth and the centenary of his death.

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Music, dance and writing in London, UK. Jessica writes for The Independent and numerous other publications. Author of biographies, novels, plays, libretti. Editor of The Amati Magazine. "Everything she writes is worth reading" - The Times..."Dazzling perceptiveness" - Joanna Lumley on Songs of Triumphant Love...
"A rare talent" - Gavin Esler on Hungarian Dances. Jessica is available to write articles on music and the arts and for public speaking engagements including pre-concert talks. To book her, please contact Limelight Celebrity Management: mail@limelightmanagement.com
www.jessicaduchen.co.uk

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JESSICA DUCHEN TALKS, CONCERTS & PLAYS

28 July, afternoon performance (time tbc)
Fishguard Festival, Wales
I’m teaming up with the distinguished British pianist Peter Donohoe, artistic director of the Fishguard Festival, for a special performance of Alicia’s Gift, the concert of the novel. More info here

20 February 2016, 2pm, WIGMORE HALL: ALICIA'S GIFT, The Concert of the Novel, with Viv McLean (piano) and me (narrator). That's right. The Wigmore Hall. The day will also include a panel discussion about child prodigies, which I'm chairing. More details soon.